Spetakkel appears on page 162 of the book Fly Girls by Keith O’Brien. O’Brien quotes a woman from Kragnes Township in Minnesota. Spetakkel is defined as “rambunctious” in English, yet sounds better in Norwegian. This word was used to describe one of the first well-known and daring female pilots, Florence Klingensmith.

Have you ever heard of Florence Klingensmith? I am going to guess probably not. Neither had I until I read Keith O’Brien’s work. The only other person I had ever heard about in the book was Amelia Earhart.

O’Brien’s book is about the first aviatrixes in the United States beginning in the 1920’s. Earhart’s fame and untimely disappearance in the 1930’s overshadowed all of their lives, deaths, and accomplishments. O’Brien does a magnificent job of bringing them all back to life and the truth of their deaths.

These women accomplished the same and more than some men (sorry, fellas) yet history has forgotten them.

I’ve never found history boring and have found the more one learns, the more there is always to learn. (The same can be said of science and other “subjects”, or areas of learning. Yes, math is included in this.)

Last night, even with a hockey playoff game going on in the background, I finished Tilar Mazzeo’s work Eliza Hamilton. Eliza’s life was a Shakespearean type drama and Greek tragedy rolled into one. Eliza was born into the Schuyler family of New York, who were cousins to the Rensselaer family. Does this name sound familiar? Eliza’s father, Phillip, fought in the Revolutionary War and was one of George Washington’s top generals. This is how she came to meet Alexander Hamilton.

Mazzeo divulges into Eliza’s life before and after Hamilton and how her life afterwards was always under his shadow. Mazzeo also goes into how history isn’t always what we think it is and there is always much more to each story given. Mazzeo goes deeply into the Maria Reynolds affair: did it really happen and was it a cover up for something else going on? The whitewashed history books don’t talk about people’s fiances and back door dealings that all of the Founding Fathers partook in. Mazzeo’s biography of Eliza is only the third of fourth book I’ve read that tackles this subject. The two best history teachers I had were the only ones who discussed this and Hamilton’s link to the Crash of 1792.

Eliza not only lost Alexander in a duel. Her oldest son, also Phillip, was killed in a duel shortly before Alexander was. Eliza dealt with situations and events most people could not picture today yet she survived and preserved what she wanted to preserve of Alexander’s legacy. Eliza also took her grief and made it into something positive.

I really wasn’t sure what I was getting into when I picked up your book The Nordic Theory of Everything. Yet once I got started, I couldn’t put it down. Then I got to the end and my reaction was: why did you stay? Love? Wouldn’t you both be better off if you followed the Nordic System of Love?

Some days I would give up everything to have unquestioned access to healthcare and free college and a system that values education and learning.

Yesterday a friend told me that a 10 year-old family member wants to kill themselves after being bullied for an entire school year by a teacher. The teacher is not being disciplined. Would this happen in Norway or are teachers as strongly vetted as they here in the US? You mention about teachers not being able to teach but not about how they treat their students.

Recently I had to pay $125 in order to get a prescription for a $5 bottle of amoxicillin. And I had to tell the doctor what I had. I find this is the experience of most people here in the US. They have to go in prepared and already done their research when talking to a doctor. Does this happen in Norway?

In college the choice was pay for college or have health insurance. I was furious when I received the insurance company packets and they said because I’m a woman, my premiums were four times that as a man the same age as myself. (Never mind that male teenagers and young adults pay higher car insurance but I don’t think the insurance would have been as high as those premiums I was quoted. My car insurance was a drop in the bucket compared to the health insurance.) All of those packets went into the recycling.

I was also working full-time while going to college and my employer paid me out of three separate accounts so that it would look like I was part-time and they didn’t have ot give me benefits. And these were local politicians.

Speaking of politicians, they use the word “reform” for healthcare here in the US. Does this strike you as strange or weird? They should turn away the lobbyists and bling and set limits on drug costs and a whole other host of items. Yes, I know equipment costs money but sometimes….Yet all they do is talk, talk, talk and no action. Well, usually it consists of bucking and fighting whatever is being presented and then knocking it out when new people are elected. Price setting in the current way of being and thinking would never work here out of pure greed.

Have a job after many months after having a baby? What concept is that? I know people who have gone back to work 4 days after giving birth. Again, large corporations cry and complain, yet as you point out, it’s a boon for new entrants into the workforce. Just a huge “WOW” is all I can say. Even if most women don’t express it directly, I’m sure they would give anything to have this after having a baby. And money to boot? I’d work three jobs to get that money back when I need it.

Your work dredged up a lot of not-so-pleasant memories and reactions, my own personal reactions, mainly being upset about how this system is available and it works yet out of greed people and corporations claw at it and fight it every chance they get.

People here in the U.S. are split in different directions regarding healthcare. However, I’m seeing more and more people on social media venting their frustrations and people are wiling to have “socialized” medicine because our system of care sucks and as one woman pointed out, due to the lack of specialists, she already has to wait six months for an appointment anyway. I’m glad to see that you brought up medical bankruptcy. One woman I know, and her husband died, is now $1 million in debt for his cancer treatments and she has small children. I can’t imagine. This is another “taboo” topic. Why? Why can’t we have conversations about this and make changes? Nobody wants to talk about it. Is it the stigma that going through bankruptcy means that you have failed?

One item you referred to but didn’t mention is that going on individual State benefits opens the door to the individual State to freeze your assets and/or take the money from your estate before your heirs receive it. Does this happen in Norway? I’ve heard stories of families in probate court have a State official show up at the probate hearing and submit the documentation for the State to take the amount in benefits that the person used for food stamps et al. while they were alive. The State gets the money first and then the family can split the rest. Some people don’t know this and I know some people just don’t care.

I don’t know how it is in New York.

I’m glad you wrote this book and I hope everything is working out for you here.

I’m going to answer one of the questions from the reader’s guide. (Something different).

Parker describes the “sickness if long thinking” as a state where a wild animal cannot be tamed by a human or humans because it always remembers where it is from and desires to go back. Even though Parker relates it to a wolf cub he told Mrs. Ross he took care of, most of the humans in the book have some sort of sickness of long thinking.

One of them is Jammet, the murder victim. Even though there is never any narration or point-of-view from Jammet, what is subsequently revealed about him is that he suffers from this and this may have been the cause of his murder. Jammet is who he is, he adapts for the person, the people, the circumstance that he is in. Francis reveals that he and Jammet were lovers while it is also revealed Jammet had a family and children. Jammet is the prime example of a human that acts like a wild animal; Jammet cannot be tamed and cannot and does not change his character for anyone. By staying on his own and living in Dove River, a type of outpost, Jammet fulfills his desires to be out in nature and be free of any obligation.

I found this book in a thrift store and don’t usually buy books yet I am glad I did.

I caught most of Ken Burn’s recent documentary on the Vietnam War. The documentary was eye-opening. I had a professor in college who was a Vietnam Veteran and most of what we read in the class was literature from Americans who served in Vietnam. As the years have gone by, I have realized that there was a lot in those books that I missed. I saw this book and I grabbed it.

Kien is lucky. The book just begs to be read and read and read. The heartbreak is there and raw from the first page. The images Ninh shares, the raw emotions, the humanity comes through every word.

The Jungle of Screaming Souls.

No matter where you stand on war, the Vietnam War, politics, this book is a must read. Bro Ninh captures and the translator beautifully brings into English Kien’s world.

The book is by the late journalist and author Jonathan Evan Maslow and it istitled Bird of Life, Bird of Death.

Mr. Maslow documents his travels for a month through Guatemala during the 1980’s. I’m surprised I haven’t heard more about this book as Mr. Maslow talks about Guatemala’s past, present up to the 1980’s, and history as well and how all of these relate to the quetzal.

I’ve seen pictures of the quetzal and the quetzal is endangered. They are beautiful birds and symbols of Guatemala’s past and a symbol for freedom because they cannot live in captivity. Guatemala also has a very fascinating past as a country.